This is a README file for a data repository originating from the DCML corpus initiative and serves as welcome page for both
- the GitHub repo https://github.com/DCMLab/rachmaninoff_piano and the corresponding
- documentation page https://dcmlab.github.io/rachmaninoff_piano
For information on how to obtain and use the dataset, please refer to this documentation page.
When you use (parts of) this dataset in your work, please read and cite the accompanying data report:
Hentschel, J., Rammos, Y., Neuwirth, M., & Rohrmeier, M. (2025). A corpus and a modular infrastructure for the empirical study of (an)notated music. Scientific Data, 12(1), 685. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04976-z
This corpus of annotated MuseScore files has been created within the DCML corpus initiative and employs the DCML harmony annotation standard. It represents Sergei Rachmaninoff's virtuosic op. 42 Variations (1931). This work, written on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, reflects the style of the composer's reticent late period. The title is something of a misnomer, as the theme is in fact the traditional La Folia, used widely by composers of the 17th and 18th centuries including Vivaldi, Händel, and indeed Corelli. Rachmaninoff tears this venerable theme to shreds with pianistic pyrotechnics so difficult that the composer himself, champion of the instrument that he was, found them unplayable. Our annotations reveal the tonal substance out of which this cycle's impressive digressions and interpolations are forged, and comparing the outputs of each of these variations should provide fertile ground for quantitative study of variational technique.
- download repository as a ZIP file
- download a Frictionless Datapackage that includes concatenations
of the TSV files in the four folders (
measures,notes,chords, andharmonies) and a JSON descriptor: - clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/DCMLab/rachmaninoff_piano.git
Each piece in this corpus is represented by five files with identical name prefixes, each in its own folder. For example, the variation theme has the following files:
MS3/op42_01a.mscx: Uncompressed MuseScore 3.6.2 file including the music and annotation labels.notes/op42_01a.notes.tsv: A table of all note heads contained in the score and their relevant features (not each of them represents an onset, some are tied together)measures/op42_01a.measures.tsv: A table with relevant information about the measures in the score.chords/op42_01a.chords.tsv: A table containing layer-wise unique onset positions with the musical markup (such as dynamics, articulation, lyrics, figured bass, etc.).harmonies/op42_01a.harmonies.tsv: A table of the included harmony labels (including cadences and phrases) with their positions in the score.
Each TSV file comes with its own JSON descriptor that describes the meanings and datatypes of the columns ("fields") it contains, follows the Frictionless specification, and can be used to validate and correctly load the described file.
After navigating to your local copy, you can open the scores in the folder MS3 with the free and open source score
editor MuseScore. Please note that the scores have been edited, annotated and tested with
MuseScore 3.6.2.
MuseScore 4 has since been released which renders them correctly but cannot store them back in the same format.
Tab-separated value (TSV) files are like Comma-separated value (CSV) files and can be opened with most modern text
editors. However, for correctly displaying the columns, you might want to use a spreadsheet or an addon for your
favourite text editor. When you use a spreadsheet such as Excel, it might annoy you by interpreting fractions as
dates. This can be circumvented by using Data --> From Text/CSV or the free alternative
LibreOffice Calc. Other than that, TSV data can be loaded with
every modern programming language.
Since the TSV files contain null values, lists, fractions, and numbers that are to be treated as strings, you may want
to use this code to load any TSV files related to this repository (provided you're doing it in Python). After a quick
pip install -U ms3 (requires Python 3.10 or later) you'll be able to load any TSV like this:
import ms3
labels = ms3.load_tsv("harmonies/op42_01a.harmonies.tsv")
notes = ms3.load_tsv("notes/op42_01a.notes.tsv")See the GitHub releases.
Please create an issue and/or feel free to fork and submit pull requests.
Hentschel, J., Rammos, Y., Neuwirth, M., & Rohrmeier, M. (2025). A corpus and a modular infrastructure for the empirical study of (an)notated music. Scientific Data, 12(1), 685. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04976-z
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
These scores were specially typeset for this project by Matthias Schabow following the reissued 1931 first edition, which is itself available via the IMSLP MIT Archive Project.
op42_(?<movement>\d{2}[ab]?)| file_name | measures | labels | standard | annotators | reviewers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| op42_05 | 16 | 17 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_06 | 16 | 82 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_07 | 18 | 51 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_08 | 15 | 45 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_09 | 19 | 52 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-2105-525X |
| op42_10 | 25 | 45 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-2105-525X |
| op42_01a | 16 | 28 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_01b | 16 | 35 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_02 | 16 | 24 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_03 | 16 | 52 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_04 | 16 | 22 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_11 | 16 | 54 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_12 | 23 | 69 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_13a | 17 | 69 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_13b | 13 | 47 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_14 | 16 | 35 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_15 | 26 | 66 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_16 | 15 | 58 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_17 | 23 | 40 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | 0000-0002-6588-2257 |
| op42_18 | 16 | 50 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | VZ |
| op42_19 | 17 | 99 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | VZ |
| op42_20 | 44 | 101 | 2.3.0 | 0000-0002-6329-7492 | VZ |
Overview table automatically updated using ms3.